


In Vino Veritas

by Ballyharnon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 08:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4012087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ballyharnon/pseuds/Ballyharnon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There is truth in wine." Severus Snape has been asked to evaluate the members of the Order as potential threats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Vino Veritas

Sirius took the glass. "Not trying to poison me, are you, Snivellus?" His concern was feigned; he drank immediately.

"No," Severus droned anyhow, nonchalant. "Say... Black?"

"Yes?"

He leapt straight to the point. "Whose side are you really on?" 

Sirius stared into his goblet, one corner of his mouth twitching. "Oh, I see." He paused, seeming to consider. "I'm an enemy of Voldemort. I hate the world we ca-- he came from. The world he wants. I would do anything to stop him."

Severus took another sip of his own wine. "What is your interest in Harry Potter?" he asked.

"I love Harry. He's family--the closest I'll ever have to a son, however long I may live. I promised his father I would look after him."

He couldn't resist. "Haven't done a very good job, have you?"

"No." The word was barked out between gritted teeth, resentful, and Sirius put one hand over his mouth, turned his head away for a moment, clearly wanting to leave it at that. But then he grated out, "As soon as I knew he was my responsibility, I gave him up to Dumbledore even though we didn't completely trust him, just so I could chase down revenge."

A single snort of strangled laughter escaped Severus before he sobered and continued the interrogation. "And the boy's mother?"

"Don't you say a word against Lily," Sirius grumbled.

Severus' black eyes narrowed shrewdly. "Were you ever involved with her yourself?"

Proving his madness, Sirius laughed aloud then. "No, I'm--! No! What? Is Lily what's had your knicks in a twist all these years?"

"Yes," Severus replied immediately, though his teeth. He looked away quickly, but Sirius had got it.

"You dosed yourself as well?" he crowed.

"Yes," Severus sniffed. "It was the only way to be sure you didn't--"

"Switch the glasses?" he cackled, delighted. "I'm not that clever or that suspicious of you _really_ , and besides, I don't give a toss if I get poisoned." His words were slurred thanks to the veritaserum; he really didn't care. "So, total truth between us, eh, Snivellus? Why are you such a prick all the time?"

"Because people are awful to me," he ground out, jerking a hand at Sirius as an example. "I become defensive and I hurt them before they can hurt me." Severus refused to allow himself to colour with embarrassment. "Why have you always hated me so?"

"Because you remind me of myself," Sirius snapped. "…of the Blacks."

They looked at one another for a long moment. This would be an interesting evening.

"It's for Lily that you're helping Harry now, isn't it?" Sirius asked.

"Obviously." Severus pursed his lips. 

"I can trust you to keep his best interests at heart?"

"Always," he said then. "That boy is all that's left of her in this world. I will kill any man who tries to hurt him, or die trying, and I'll do it with a clear conscience."

"And yet you treat him appallingly yourself," Sirius pointed out.

"I do."

"Why?"

Severus regarded him levelly. "Because he should be _my_ son."

Sirius frowned, shook his head. "That absolutely isn't the truth," he said carefully. "Nothing about that is true."

Both men sipped at their drinks. Severus said nothing--it was true enough, to him.

"Are you loyal to Dumbledore?" Sirius eventually asked.

"No," Severus said promptly. "Are you?"

"No, I'm only loyal to my family." He clearly didn't refer to the ancient and most noble house of Black. There was another long silence. Each man watched the other carefully, unsure what to make of this development. Sirius drank more of the dosed wine. 

Though he looked worried, when Severus spoke again his voice was wistful. "Tell me, was Lily… happy?"

"Of course not," Sirius said with a shrug. "We were at war--and not regular war, mind you, special evil racist wizard war," he elaborated unnecessarily, grimly amused by his own summation. "She fell pregnant, James was--I loved him dearly, you understand, but he was an absolute tit, he really was. The--our whole lives were a trainwreck and we all knew it. None of us were happy, but we were young, and that's enough sometimes… I want to talk about something else."

Severus began to wonder if he had perhaps tipped a bit more into Sirius' goblet than was required--the man was beginning to sound quite alarmingly drugged, not a typical reaction at all. Well, that or he was just already sauced. Considering his bony frame, either was equally likely.

"Very well." Severus kept his tone carefully neutral. "You're what?"

"I don't understand."

"When I asked you about Lily, you started to say something. What did you mean?"

"I don't understand."

"Tell me about yourself and... Remus Lupin."

"Tell you what, you perverted bastard?" 

"Tell me about your--connection with him. Believe me, I'd just as soon not have to ask, but Dumbledore has requested that I evaluate everyone in the Order as a potential security risk and I'm choosing to focus extra attention on dark creatures and convicted murderers. So it's true, then?"

"Of course it was true." He smiled, without contempt, revealing rotting teeth; he slowly, deliberately took another draught of veritaserum and merlot. "And it was fantastic," he added below his breath.

"Merlin!" Snape swore, clearly discomfited. 

"No," Sirius said. "Afraid I haven't had the pleasure of shagging Merlin, I couldn't tell you anything about that."

"Why?"

"Because he lived so long ago," he blurted. Sirius paused, confused. He seemed to consult a patch of space immediately in front of his face. His focus slowly lengthened until he was looking at Severus again. "I don't understand. Why what?"

"Why do you-- How can you-- be involved with him? Allow him in your bed?" In his current state of mind, Severus couldn't suppress a little shudder at the thought. "Another man... and what's more, a beast pretending to be a man. It's... incomprehensible."

"To you, perhaps. Which means, incidentally, that James owes me five squids, wherever he is." He ignored the werewolf issue altogether; Remus was as human as he. Sirius briefly consulted the space in front of his eyes again. "We... fit. We were attracted to each other. He understood me, I understood him." He gave Severus a mischievous grin. "You know what I always found incomprehensible?" he asked lightly.

"No."

"Murdering innocent people because of how they were born." A brutally cold change of subject, perhaps, or perhaps a perfectly logical sequitur. His grin was suddenly gone.

There was no question in it. Severus just stared at him.

"We know you turned coat for us," he said then. "Which means your first loyalty was to them." Eyes narrowed, he drew out a cigarette. "You," he said, pausing to spark it on his knuckle, " _participated_. Willingly." It was clear Sirius would never forgive him for it, whatever truths they were sharing tonight notwithstanding.

"My _first_ loyalty was to Hogwarts, to the school," Severus droned sardonically. "But you're right. I did."

"Why?"

"Because I hate myself. I hate my own muggle blood."

"Why?"

"Because my muggle father used to beat my mother," Severus snapped, irritated. "Even though she could have stopped him with the simplest charm--" He stopped himself abruptly, shook his head. "Because he wasn't good enough for her--just as I wasn't good enough for Lily."

Sirius seemed to regard him with something like sympathy or even understanding for a bare second, but then he smirked, cruelly. "James was a pureblood, just like me. You've been envious all along."

"Obviously."

"And you know why Lily would never have had you, don't you? It was nothing to do with your blood."

"It was _because_ I was envious. Because I tried to hurt her to make myself feel better." And then he'd doubled-down, impressively.

"I did the same," Sirius blurted around the filter of his cigarette. "That night, at the willow. I tried to frighten you because I thought it would make me feel better about being so much like you, so much like the whole pureblooded serpent's nest I'd come from. I never thought you'd _go_. I thought it would prove that you were a coward, that I was better than you because I was brave enough to face him--"

"But I would have done _anything_ to satisfy my curiosity," Severus interrupted. "To get one over on the lot of you. You Gryffindors, you call us Slytherins cowards but you underestimate the lengths we will go to when we must."

"It's no wonder they made you 'ead-of-'ouse," Sirius drawled, dropping his haiches in a momentary and deliberate eschewing of his class--like using 'squids' for a bet. He took a long drag. 

"Do you feel remorse for what you did that night?"

"Yes..." Sirius said slowly, and he sounded sad. He might not have been sorry for the effect his prank had had on Severus, particularly. "Do _you_ feel remorse? For the people you killed? Because of their blood-status?"

Severus paused. "I don't know. I think so, sometimes." Of course it was as truthful an answer as he had. "Do you regret letting one of the twenty-eight sacred bloodlines die out?"

"Mordred's cock, you really are into it," Sirius observed. "I'm _proud_ of it, sir. It may be my greatest accomplishment in life." He shrugged. "It's not as though I had a choice in the matter."

"Is that true?" Severus asked, leaning forward. "You never had a choice?"

"Never, Severus. And I did try--there's still proof of that upstairs, permastuck to the wall. You brewed the veritaserum yourself, I presume?" 

"Of course."

Sirius shrugged again as if that settled the matter, grinning mildly. 

"That's the real reason you're opposed to pureblood supremacy, isn't it?" Severus said after a time.

Sirius nodded. "Because I was born a blood-traitor, and I knew it early. I never had a choice in which side to take."

Severus considered for a moment, and then said, "You kept using the past tense--what did you mean?"

"I don't-- You really must be more specific, Severus, old boy, I have a lot of things to use the past tense about. I thought you were a professional at this."

"You and Lupin, you're not still...?"

Sirius grinned wickedly. "Still what?" he prodded, still slurring charmingly, for he wasn't bound to answer a question half-asked. "Motorbike enthusiasts? Avid readers? Drinkers of black coffee?"

"Together." Severus finally said, eyes narrowed.

Sirius pursed his lips in a considering sort of way; at length he shrugged. "I don't think so," he finally said, grinding his cigarette out on the table.

Fair enough.

"Do you believe Lupin can be trusted?"

"Of course I do. Now." Sirius was silent for a moment, again consulting the middle distance. "I should have trusted him all along."

"And are you able to... keep him under control?"

Sirius quite overarched a single brow, in a magnificent display of aristocratic disdain. "Other way 'round, darling," he said, his now dramatically slow and precise diction seething-facetious. "Oh, or did you mean his furry little problem?"

Severus overcame his sneer enough to speak. "Obviously I did."

Sirius looked haughty, but he admitted, "I'm sure Remus would thank you to bring some wolfsbane potion next week."

Severus nodded.

"It makes him much more comfortable," Sirius clarified, still a touch overproud. There was a long silence. Then, a not-so-subtle highborn dismissal, "Was there anything else?"

Severus shook his head. "No."

Sirius nodded, seemed to consider for a moment, then he met the other man's eyes again. "Did you _really_ love her?" he asked then. "Lily, I mean."

He sighed. "I shall always believe that my love for her is true," he said, his usually-strident voice soft, still-bitter. "I still feel we were fated, though she clearly didn't." 

"Sometimes I think I know that feeling," Sirius admitted with a wry quirk of the lip. "You and I, we were always far too similar." And then, turning it into a sly grin, he stood and drew something small out of his waistcoat pocket. Leaning forward over the table, he set it down before the other man's glass. "Goodnight, Severus, it's been a pleasure," he said sweetly, and then he turned to go, waving over his shoulder as he left the room.

It was a tiny, ornate phial, empty now. The little parchment tag, labelled in Sirius' own hand, read _Draught of Silver-Tongue_.

He'd forgot that Black had always had top marks in potions as well. It was one of the few known antidotes to veritaserum, and notoriously difficult to brew, not least because one of the major components, fresh werewolf's venom, was nearly impossible to get before it went off--harder to lay hands on than the expensive and toxic wolfsbane root which Severus could acquire in bulk for educational purposes. Black must have been carrying the draught with him the entire time Severus had had access to Grimmauld Place, perhaps had been continually dosing himself with it just in case.

Severus should have expected it of him, particularly in light of his frankly still-ambiguous connection with Lupin.

At what point in the conversation had he taken the antidote? Had it all been lies?

Had any of it?

And then Severus considered what he had given away of himself. He was the greatest living Occlumensor of his generation and a literal master of potions himself, and Sirius Black--a blood-traitor queer, a useless wastrel, and a convict--had got every secret he had out of him with some simple sleight-of-hand and a bit of Lupin's spit.

He felt quite the fool.


End file.
